Random Horror Stories - 500

Annie hated the clock. It had been in the hallway since before she could remember, its brass hands frozen at 3:17. Her mother never spoke much about it, just that it had belonged to her grandmother, who'd inherited it from someone even older. To Annie, it felt like a lie, some heavy thing that lived in their house, watching, judging. She hated it.

The ticking started the night after her birthday.

She hadn't even noticed it at first, too caught up in the chaos of unpacking presents and cake. But when the house quieted, when the guests left, that's when she heard it. A soft, slow ticking. Not the normal sound of a clock. This one was too loud, too wrong. She tried to ignore it, shoved her pillow over her ears. But it wouldn't stop. Tick. Tick. Tick. Over and over again, until it felt like her mind was being dragged along with each passing second.

The next night, it was worse. Louder. Closer. She'd woken up to it, that noise gnawing into her skull. Annie had crawled out of bed, heart racing. Her room was dark, the clock's tick now pounding in her ears. She crept to the door, opened it a crack.

The hallway stretched before her. The clock, that damned clock, stood at the far end. Silent.

She'd almost convinced herself she was imagining it when—there it was again. Tick. Tick. Tick. It was coming from the clock. It had to be. But the clock's hands hadn't moved. They still pointed at 3:17.

She slammed the door shut, locked it, and tried to sleep. But sleep didn't come. Not with that noise crawling through the walls.

By the third night, Annie couldn't take it anymore. She was tired, exhausted from the endless sound of it. She'd gone to her mom earlier, told her the clock was doing something weird, but her mom hadn't even looked up from the sink. "It's just an old thing," she'd said. "You're just hearing things."

So that night, Annie made a plan. She was going to fix it. She grabbed a crowbar from the garage, not sure what she expected to do, but knowing she couldn't take it anymore. She made her way to the clock, her hand shaking. The ticking never stopped. It never slowed.

She swung the crowbar at the face, cracking the glass. But it didn't stop. The sound got louder. Faster.

Ticktickticktickticktick.

Her heart hammered. The room felt like it was closing in. She swung again, smashing the glass harder, shattering it. The ticking wouldn't stop. The hands jerked. Backward. The clock was moving backward, spinning, faster, and faster.

Her breath caught. The air thickened. Something in the walls groaned. The clock's hands were spinning like a storm, the tick-tick-tick now merging into a pulse, a heartbeat that filled her veins.

She tried to step back, but the floor was slick, as if something was pulling her toward the clock. Her hand reached out, instinctively, as if it had control over her. She grabbed the brass hands.

The clock stopped.

She didn't. Her skin burned. She couldn't pull her hand away. It was glued to the clock like some kind of trap. Something cracked in her spine, something that wasn't meant to break.

Her body jerked once. Twice. And then—nothing.

The clock sat silent again.

But Annie wasn't there anymore.

The clock ticked on, now, forever frozen at 3:17.